t something absolute and solid, that
he--Felix Freeland--had missed? Or again, was it, perhaps, but the
natural concomitant of youth, a naive effervescence with which thought
and brooding had to part? And, turning the page of his book, he noticed
that he could no longer see to read, the lamp had grown too dim, and
showed but a decorative glow in the bright moonlight flooding through the
study window. He got up and put another log on the fire, for these last
nights of May were chilly.

Nearly three! Where were these young people? Had he been asleep, and
they come in? Sure enough, in the hall Alan's hat and Sheila's
cloak--the dark-red one he had admired when she went forth--were lying on
a chair. But of the other two--nothing! He crept upstairs. Their doors
were open. They certainly took their time--these young lovers. And the
same sore feeling which had attacked Felix when Nedda first told him of
her love came on him badly in that small of the night when his vitality
was lowest. All the hours she had spent clambering about him, or quietly
resting on his knee with her head tucked in just where his arm and
shoulder met, listening while he read or told her stories, and now and
again turning those clear eyes of hers wide open to his face, to see if
he meant it; the wilful little tugs of her hand when they two went
exploring the customs of birds, or bees, or flowers; all her 'Daddy, I
love yous!' and her rushes to the front door, and long hugs when he came
back from a travel; all those later crookings of her little finger in
his, and the times he had sat when she did not know it, watching her, and
thinking: 'That little creature, with all that's before her, is my very
own daughter to take care of, and share joy and sorrow with. . . .' Each
one of all these seemed to come now and tweak at him, as the songs of
blackbirds tweak the heart of one who lies, unable to get out into the
Spring. His lamp had burned itself quite out; the moon was fallen below
the clump of pines, and away to the north-east something stirred in the
stain and texture of the sky. Felix opened the window. What peace out
there! The chill, scentless peace of night, waiting for dawn's renewal
of warmth and youth. Through that bay window facing north he could see
on one side the town, still wan with the light of its lamps, on the other
the country, whose dark bloom was graying fast. Suddenly a tiny bird
twittered, and Felix saw his two truants